At this point, I had all the pieces, I could slot them together, and call it a rifle rack. But there was still one more thing I wanted to do. I wanted to put in a slip rail on the bottom of the rack. Not that I was worried about rifles slipping off, so much as for the added rigidity to the stand. Wanted this thing to sit with confidence, and not slide, lean, or shake when bumped into. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to practice hand cutting mortises. I have wanted to do more traditional woodworking for the last year now, and have slowly been building up the tool kit and the willingness to hand-slaughter some wood. Plus, I just got a new set of Ray Isles traditional mortising chisels, also known as 'pig sticker chisels' (true) that I really wanted to try out. I practiced a couple mortises on a piece of scrap. First one split the scrap in half. Second one looked like it was done by drunk Ray Charles. Third one looked ok. Good enough for the practice, I suppose! Let's get chiselling:


Tape marks the depth you want to cut to. These chisels are not meant to be delicate. You set it with two light taps of the hammer, and then whale on it until it reaches the desired depth. Lever forward, then lever up. Move about a quarter inch forward and repeat.

Make sure you hit your depth:


Feel pretty good about yourself:


Move on to the next one, and cut the mortise on the wrong side of the line. Dammit. Not enough wood to start over, so it will have to be salvaged. First, I widened it:


Then, I cut a plug for the hole, also known as a 'Dutchman':


A little glue, then hammered it in place:


Will get planed flush, and then recut the mortise.